Aides aim to block tariffs

Wednesday

Mar 7, 2018 at 2:01 AM

Republicans in Congress are mounting an unusual public campaign to thwart tariffs proposed by a fellow Republican.

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump is facing a last-ditch effort from within his own administration and Republican lawmakers to head off steep tariffs on steel and aluminum that threaten to unleash a global trade war.

White House economic adviser Gary Cohn is summoning executives from U.S. companies that depend on the metals to meet this week with Trump to try to persuade him to blunt or halt the tariffs announced last week, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Republicans in Congress are mounting an unusual public campaign to thwart the tariffs, with House Speaker Paul Ryan's spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, releasing a statement urging the president to halt the plan, a rare public break between the two GOP leaders.

On Tuesday, Ryan, R-Wisconsin., told reporters that any tariffs should be narrower and cited "overcapacity, dumping and trans-shipping of steel and aluminum by some countries, particularly China."

"What we're encouraging the administration to do is to focus on what is clearly a legitimate problem and to be more surgical in its approach so we can go after the true abusers without any kind of unintended consequences or collateral damage," Ryan said.

Trump on Monday stood by his call for a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum, saying that "we're not backing down." Yet if he doesn't retreat, Cohn may quit the administration and some in Congress could try to limit the president's authority to impose trade penalties.

The split in the Republican ranks on trade is coming to a head as the party struggles to hold a previously safe House seat in a special election in steel country. Trump plans to visit the area on Saturday, a few days before the vote in southwestern Pennsylvania, where recent polls show a Democrat slightly ahead in a district Trump carried by 20 percentage points in 2016.

Tariff supporters are pressing Trump to announce the measures during his visit to mobilize GOP voters, but Cohn is pushing back with the meeting of executives to make the case that trade sanctions will cost American jobs. The White House session with Trump on Thursday will include representatives of breweries, beverage-can manufacturers and automakers, along with the oil industry, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a policy disagreement.

A Trump order to impose the tariffs would be a huge setback for Cohn, who has vigorously opposed the move, citing concerns that it would hurt the economy. Trump has told advisers that he believes Cohn, a former senior executive at Goldman Sachs, will leave his White House job if Trump decides to go forward with the tariffs, people familiar with the matter say.

Conservative groups, including the Club for Growth, a pro-free market organization, have also cautioned that tariffs would hurt the economy and Republican chances to hold on to both chambers of Congress in this year's midterm elections.

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